Arabella Griffith was born in Somerville, New Jersey, but was brought up

and educated under the care of Miss Eliza Wallace of Burlington, New

Jersey, who was a relative upon her father's side. As she grew up she

developed remarkable powers. Those who knew her well, both as relatives

and in the social circle, speak of her warm heart, her untiring energy,

her brilliant conversational powers, and the beauty and delicacy of

thought which marked her contributions to the press. By all who knew her

she was regarded as a remarkable woman.

That she was an ardent patriot, in more than words, who can doubt? She

sealed her devotion to her country's cause by the sublimest sacrifices

of which woman is capable--sacrifices in which she never faltered even

in the presence of death itself.

Arabella Griffith was a young and lovely woman, the brilliant centre of

a large and admiring circle. Francis C. Barlow was a rising young lawyer

with a noble future opening before him. These two were about to unite

their destinies in the marriage relation.

Into the midst of their joyful anticipations, came the echoes of the

first shot fired by rebellion. The country sprang to arms. These ardent

souls were not behind their fellow-countrymen and countrywomen in their

willingness to act and to suffer for the land and the Government they

loved.

On the 19th of April, 1861, Mr. Barlow enlisted as a private in the

Twelfth Regiment New York Militia. On the 20th of April they were

married, and on the 21st Mr. Barlow left with his regiment for

Washington.

In the course of a week Mrs. Barlow followed her husband, and remained

with him at Washington, and at Harper's Ferry, where the Twelfth was

presently ordered to join General Patterson's command, until its return

home, August 1st, 1861.

In November, 1861, Mr. Barlow re-entered the service, as

Lieutenant-Colonel of the Sixty-first New York Volunteers, and Mrs.

Barlow spent the winter with him in camp near Alexandria, Virginia. She

shrank from no hardship which it was his lot to encounter, and was with

him, to help, to sustain, and to cheer him, whenever it was practicable

for her to be so, and neglected no opportunity of doing good to others

which presented itself.

Colonel Barlow made the Peninsular Campaign in the spring and summer of

1862 under McClellan. After the disastrous retreat from before Richmond,

Mrs. Barlow joined the Sanitary Commission, and reached Harrison's

Landing on the 2d of July, 1862.

Exhausted, wounded, sick and dying men were arriving there by scores of

thousands--the remnants of a great army, broken by a series of terrible

battles, disheartened and well-nigh demoralized. Many of the best and

noblest of our American women were there in attendance, ready to do

their utmost amidst all the hideous sights, and fearful sufferings of

the hospitals, for these sick, and maimed, and wounded men. Mrs. Barlow

remained, doing an untold amount of work, and good proportionate, until

the army left in the latter part of August.

Soon after, with short space for rest, she rejoined her husband in the

field during the campaign in Maryland, but was obliged to go north upon

business, and was detained and unable to return until the day following

the battle of Antietam.

She found her husband badly wounded, and of course her first efforts

were for him. She nursed him tenderly and unremittingly, giving such

assistance as was possible in her rare leisure to the other wounded. We

cannot doubt that even then she was very useful, and with her accustomed

energy and activity, made these spare moments of great avail.

General Barlow was unfit for further service until the following spring.

His wife remained in attendance upon him through the winter of 1862-3,

and in the spring accompanied him to the field, and made the campaign

with him from Falmouth to Gettysburg.

At this battle her husband was again severely wounded. He was within the

enemy's lines, and it was only by great effort and exposure that she was

able to have him removed within our own. She remained here, taking care

of him, and of the other wounded, during the dreadful days that

followed, during which the sufferings of the wounded from the intense

heat, and the scarcity of medical and other supplies were almost

incredible, and altogether indescribable. It was after this battle that

the efficient aid, and the generous supplies afforded by the Sanitary

Commission and its agents, were so conspicuous, and the results of this

beneficent organization in the saving of life and suffering perhaps more

distinctly seen than on any other occasion. Mrs. Barlow, aside from her

own special and absorbing interest in her husband's case, found time to

demonstrate that she had imbibed its true spirit.

Again, through a long slow period of convalescence she watched beside

her husband, but the spring of 1864 found her in the field prepared for

the exigencies of Grant's successful campaign of that year.

At times she was with General Barlow in the trenches before Petersburg,

but on the eve of the fearful battles of the Wilderness, and the others

which followed in such awfully bewildering succession, she was to be

found at the place these foreshadowed events told that she was most

needed. At Belle Plain, at Fredericksburg, and at White House, she was

to be found as ever actively working for the sick and wounded. A friend

and fellow-laborer describes her work as peculiar, and fitting admirably

into the more exclusive hospital work of the majority of the women who

had devoted themselves to the care of the soldiers. Her great activity

and inexhaustible energy showed themselves in a sort of roving work, in

seizing upon and gathering up such things as her quick eye saw were

needed. "We called her 'the Raider,'" says this friend, who was also a

warm admirer. "At Fredericksburg she had in some way gained possession

of a wretched-looking pony, and a small cart or farmer's wagon, with

which she was continually on the move, driving about town or country in

search of such provisions or other articles as were needed for the sick

and wounded. The surgeon in charge had on one occasion assigned her the

task of preparing a building, which had been taken for a hospital, for a

large number of wounded who were expected almost immediately. I went

with my daughter to the building. It was empty, containing not the

slightest furniture or preparation for the sufferers, save a large

number of bed-sacks, without straw or other material to fill them.

"On requisition a quantity of straw was obtained, but not nearly enough

for the expected need, and we were standing in a kind of mute despair,

considering if it were indeed possible to secure any comfort for the

poor fellows expected, when Mrs. Barlow came in. 'I'll find some more

straw,' was her cheerful reply, and in another moment she was urging her

tired beast toward another part of the town where she remembered having

seen a bale of the desired article earlier in the day. Half an hour

afterward the straw had been confiscated, loaded upon the little wagon

by willing hands, and brought to the hospital. She then helped to fill

and arrange the sacks, and afterwards drove about the town in search of

articles, which, by the time the ambulances brought in their freight of

misery and pain, had served to furnish the place with some means of

alleviation."

Through all these awful days she labored on unceasingly. Her health

became somewhat impaired, but she paid no heed to the warning. Her

thoughts were not for herself, her cares not for her own sufferings.

Earlier attention to her own condition might perhaps, have arrested the

threatening symptoms, but she was destined to wear the crown of

martyrdom, and lay down the beautiful life upon which so many hopes

clung, her last sacrifice upon the altar of her country. The extracts

which we append describe better the closing scenes of her life than we

can. The first is taken from the _Sanitary Commission Bulletin_, of

August 15, 1864, and we copy also the beautiful tribute to the memory of

the departed contributed by Dr. Francis Lieber, of Columbia College, to

the _New York Evening Post_. The briefer extract is from a letter which

appeared in the columns of the _New York Herald_ of July 31st, 1864.

"Died at Washington, July 27, 1864, Mrs. Arabella Griffith Barlow, wife

of Brigadier-General Francis C. Barlow, of fever contracted while in

attendance upon the hospitals of the Army of the Potomac at the front.

"With the commencement of the present campaign she became attached to

the Sanitary Commission, and entered upon her sphere of active work

during the pressing necessity for willing hands and earnest hearts, at

Fredericksburg. The zeal, the activity, the ardent loyalty and the

scornful indignation for everything disloyal she then displayed, can

never be forgotten by those whose fortune it was to be with her on that

occasion. Ever watchful of the necessities of that trying time, her

mind, fruitful in resources, was always busy in devising means to

alleviate the discomforts of the wounded, attendant upon so vast a

campaign within the enemy's country, and her hand was always ready to

carry out the devices of her mind.

"Many a fractured limb rested upon a mattress improvised from materials

sought out and brought together from no one knew where but the earnest

sympathizing woman who is now no more.

"At Fredericksburg she labored with all her heart and mind. The sound of

battle in which her husband was engaged, floating back from

Chancellorsville, stimulated her to constant exertions. She faltered not

an instant. Remaining till all the wounded had been removed from

Fredericksburg, she left with the last hospital transport for Port

Royal, where she again aided in the care of the wounded, as they were

brought in at that point. From thence she went to White House, on one of

the steamers then in the service of the Commission, and immediately

going to the front, labored there in the hospitals, after the battle of

Cold Harbor. From White House she passed to City Point, and arrived

before the battles in front of Petersburg. Going directly to the front,

she labored there with the same energy and devotion she had shown at

Fredericksburg and White House.

"Of strong constitution, she felt capable of enduring all things for the

cause she loved; but long-continued toil, anxiety and privation prepared

her system for the approach of fever, which eventually seized upon her.

"Yielding to the solicitation of friends she immediately returned to

Washington, where, after a serious illness of several weeks, she, when

apparently convalescing, relapsed, and fell another martyr to a love of

country."

Dr. Lieber says: "Mrs. Barlow, (Arabella Griffith before she married),

was a highly cultivated lady, full of life, spirit, activity and

charity.

"General Barlow entered as private one of our New York volunteer

regiments at the beginning of the war. The evening before he left New

York for Washington with his regiment, they were married in the

Episcopal Church in Lafayette Place. Barlow rose, and as

Lieutenant-Colonel, made the Peninsular campaign under General

McClellan. He was twice severely wounded, the last time at Antietam.

Since then we have always read his name most honorably mentioned,

whenever Major-General Hancock's Corps was spoken of. Mrs. Barlow in the

meantime entered the Sanitary service. In the Peninsular campaign she

was one of those ladies who worked hard and nobly, close to the

battle-field, as close indeed as they were permitted to do. When her

husband was wounded she attended, of course, upon him. In the present

campaign of General Grant she has been at Belle Plain, White House, and

everywhere where our good Sanitary Commission has comforted the dying

and rescued the many wounded from the grave, which they would otherwise

have found. The last time I heard of her she was at White House, and now

I am informed that she died of typhus fever in Washington. No doubt she

contracted the malignant disease in performing her hallowed and

self-imposed duty in the field.

"Her friends will mourn at the removal from this life of so noble a

being. All of us are the poorer for her loss; but our history has been

enriched by her death. Let it always be remembered as one of those

details which, like single pearls, make up the precious string of

history, and which a patriot rejoices to contemplate and to transmit

like inherited jewels to the rising generations. Let us remember as

American men and women, that here we behold a young advocate, highly

honored for his talents by all who knew him. He joins the citizen army

of his country as a private, rises to command, is wounded again and

again, and found again and again at the head of his regiment or

division, in the fight where decision centres. And here is his

bride--accomplished, of the fairest features, beloved and sought for in

society--who divests herself of the garments of fashion, and becomes the

assiduous nurse in the hospital and on the field, shrinking from no

sickening sight, and fearing no typhus--that dreadful enemy, which in

war follows the wings of the angel of death, like the fever-bearing

currents of air--until she, too, is laid on the couch of the camp, and

bidden to rest from her weary work, and to let herself be led by the

angel of death to the angel of life. God bless her memory to our women,

our men, our country.

"There are many glories of a righteous war. It is glorious to fight or

fall, to bleed or to conquer, for so great and good a cause as ours; it

is glorious to go to the field in order to help and to heal, to fan the

fevered soldier and to comfort the bleeding brother, and thus helping,

may be to die with him the death for our country. Both these glories

have been vouchsafed to the bridal pair."

The _Herald_ correspondent, writing from Petersburg, July 31, says:

"General Miles is temporarily in command of the First Division during

the absence of General Barlow, who has gone home for a few days for the

purpose of burying his wife. The serious loss which the gallant young

general and an extensive circle of friends in social life have sustained

by the death of Mrs. Barlow, is largely shared by the soldiers of this

army. She smoothed the dying pillow of many patriotic soldiers before

she received the summons to follow them herself; and many a surviving

hero who has languished in army hospitals will tenderly cherish the

memory of her saintly ministrations when they were writhing with the

pain of wounds received in battle or lost in the delirium of consuming

fevers."

To these we add also the cordial testimony of Dr. W. H. Reed, one of her

associates, at City Point, in his recently published "Hospital Life in

the Army of the Potomac:"

"Of our own more immediate party, Mrs. General Barlow was the only one

who died. Her exhausting work at Fredericksburg, where the largest

powers of administration were displayed, left but a small measure of

vitality with which to encounter the severe exposures of the poisoned

swamps of the Pamunky, and the malarious districts of City Point. Here,

in the open field, she toiled with Mr. Marshall and Miss Gilson, under

the scorching sun, with no shelter from the pouring rains, with no

thought but for those who were suffering and dying all around her. On

the battle-field of Petersburg, hardly out of range of the enemy, and at

night witnessing the blazing lines of fire from right to left, among the

wounded, with her sympathies and powers of both mind and body strained

to the last degree, neither conscious that she was working beyond her

strength, nor realizing the extreme exhaustion of her system, she

fainted at her work, and found, only when it was too late, that the

raging fever was wasting her life away. It was strength of will which

sustained her in this intense activity, when her poor, tired body was

trying to assert its own right to repose. Yet to the last, her sparkling

wit, her brilliant intellect, her unfailing good humor, lighted up our

moments of rest and recreation. So many memories of her beautiful

constancy and self-sacrifice, of her bright and genial companionship, of

her rich and glowing sympathies, of her warm and loving nature, come

back to me, that I feel how inadequate would be any tribute I could pay

to her worth."

MRS. NELLIE MARIA TAYLOR.

The Southwest bore rank weeds of secession and treason, spreading poison

and devastation over that portion of our fair national heritage. But

from the same soil, amidst the ruin and desolation which followed the

breaking out of the rebellion, there sprang up growths of loyalty and

patriotism, which by flowering and fruitage, redeemed the land from the

curse that had fallen upon it.

Among the women of the Southwest have occurred instances of the most

devoted loyalty, the most self-sacrificing patriotism. They have

suffered deeply and worked nobly, and their efforts alone have been

sufficient to show that no part of our fair land was irrecoverably

doomed to fall beneath the ban of a government opposed to freedom,

truth, and progress.

Prominent among these noble women, is Mrs. Nellie Maria Taylor, of New

Orleans, whose sufferings claim our warmest sympathy, and whose work our

highest admiration and gratitude.

Mrs. Taylor, whose maiden name was Dewey, was born in Watertown,

Jefferson county, New York, in the year 1821, of New England parentage.

At an early age she removed with her parents to the West, where, as she

says of herself, she "grew up among the Indians," and perhaps, by her

free life, gained something of the firmness of health and strength of

character and purpose, which have brought her triumphantly through the

trials and labors of the past four years.

[Illustration: MRS. NELLIE MARIA TAYLOR.

Eng^d. by A.H. Ritchie.]

She married early, and about the year 1847 removed with her husband,

Dr. Taylor, and her two children, to New Orleans, where she has since

resided. Consequently she was there through the entire secession

movement, during which, by her firm and unswerving loyalty, she

contrived to render herself somewhat obnoxious to those surrounding her,

of opposite sentiments.

Mrs. Taylor watched anxiously the progress of the movements which

preceded the outbreak, and fearlessly, though not obtrusively, expressed

her own adverse opinions. At this time her eldest son was nineteen years

of age, a noble and promising youth. He was importuned by his friends

and associates to join some one of the many companies then forming, but

as he was about to graduate in the high school, he and his family made

that an objection. As soon as he graduated a lieutenancy was offered him

in one of the companies, but deferring an answer, he left immediately

for a college in the interior. Two months after the college closed its

doors, and the students, urged by the faculty, almost _en-masse_ entered

the army. Mrs. Taylor, to remove her son, sent him at once to the north,

and rejoiced in the belief that he was safe.

Immediately after this her persecutions commenced. Her husband had been

ill for more than two years, while she supported her family by teaching,

being principal of one of the city public schools. One day she was

called from his bed-side to an interview with one of the Board of

Directors of the schools.

By him she was accused (?) of being a Unionist, and informed that it was

believed that she had sent her son away "to keep him from fighting for

his country." Knowing the gentleman to be a northern man, she answered

freely, saying that the country of herself and son was the whole

country, and for _it_ she was willing he should shed his last drop of

blood, but not to divide and mutilate it, would she consent that he

should ever endanger himself.

The consequence of this freedom of speech was her dismissal from her

situation on the following day. With her husband ill unto death, her

house mortgaged, her means of livelihood taken away, she could only

look upon the future with dark forebodings which nothing but her faith

in God and the justice of her cause could subdue.

A short time after a mob assembled to tear down her house. She stepped

out to remonstrate with them against pulling down the house over the

head of a dying man. The answer was, "Madam, we give you five minutes to

decide whether you are for the South or the North. If at the end of that

time you declare yourself for the South, your house shall remain; if for

the North, it must come down."

Her answer was memorable.

"Sir, I will say to you and your crowd, and to the _world_ if you choose

to summon it--I am, always have been, and ever shall be, for the

_Union_. Tear my house down if you choose!"

Awed perhaps by her firmness, and unshrinking devotion, the spokesman of

the mob looked at her steadily for a moment, then turning to the crowd

muttered something, and they followed him away, leaving her unmolested.

This man was a renegade Boston Yankee.

Such was her love for the national flag that during all this period of

persecution, previous to General Butler's taking possession of the city

she never slept without the banner of the free above her head, although

her house was searched no less than seven times by a mob of chivalrous

gentlemen, varying in number from two or three score to three hundred,

led by a judge who deemed it not beneath his dignity to preside over a

court of justice by day, and to search the premises of a defenseless

woman by night, in the hope of finding the Union flag, in order to have

an excuse for ejecting her from the city, because she was well known to

entertain sentiments inimical to the interests of secession.

Before the South ran mad with treason, Mrs. Taylor and the wife of this

judge were intimate friends, and their intimacy had not entirely ceased

so late as the early months of 1862. It was late in February of that

year that Mrs. Taylor was visiting at the judge's house, and during her

visit the judge's son, a young man of twenty, taunted her with various

epithets, such as a "Lincoln Emissary," "a traitor to her country," "a

friend of Lincoln's hirelings," etc. She listened quietly, and then as

quietly remarked that "he evidently belonged to that very numerous class

of young men in the South who evinced their courage by applying abusive

epithets to women and defenseless persons, but showed a due regard to

their own safety, by running away--as at Donelson--whenever they were

likely to come into contact with "Lincoln's hirelings.""

The same evening, at a late hour, while Mrs. Taylor was standing by the

bed-side of her invalid husband, preparing some medicine for him, she

heard the report of a rifle and felt the wind of a minie bullet as it

passed close to her head and lodged in the wall. In the morning she dug

the ball out of the wall and took it over to the judge's house which was

opposite to her own. When the young man came in Mrs. Taylor handed it to

him, and asked if he knew what it was. He turned pale, but soon

recovered his composure sufficiently to reply that "it looked like a

rifle-ball." "Oh, no," said Mrs. Taylor, "you mistake! It is a piece of

Southern chivalry fired at a defenseless woman, in the middle of the

night, by the son of a judge, whose courage should entitle him to a

commission in the Confederate army."

Still, brave as she was, she could not avoid some feeling, if not of

trepidation, at least of anxiety, at being thus exposed to midnight

assassination, while her life was so necessary to her helpless family.

These are but a few instances out of many, of the trials she had to

endure. Her son hearing of them, through the indiscretion of a

school-friend, hastened home, determined to enlist in the Confederate

army to save his parents from further molestation. He enlisted for

ninety days, hoping thus to shield his family from persecution, but the

Conscription Act, which shortly after went into effect, kept him in the

position for which his opinions so unfitted him. From the spring of

1862, he remained in the Confederate army, gaining rapid promotion, and

distinguished for his bravery, until the close of the war, when he

returned home unchanged in sentiment, and unharmed by shot or shell--in

this last particular more fortunate than thousands of others forced by

conscription into the ranks, and sacrificing their lives for a cause

with which they had no sympathy.

From the time of her son's enlistment Mrs. Taylor was nearly free from

molestation, and devoted herself to the care of her family, until the

occupation of New Orleans by the Union forces. She was then reinstated

in her position as teacher, and after the establishment of Union

hospitals, she spent all her leisure moments in ministering to the wants

of the sick and wounded.

In 1863, we hear of her as employing all her summer vacation, as well as

her entire leisure-time when in school, in visiting the hospitals,

attending the sick and wounded soldiers, and preparing for them such

delicacies and changes of food and other comforts as she could procure

from her own purse, and by the aid of others. From that time forward

until the close of the war, or until the hospitals were closed by order

of the Government, she continued this work, expending her whole salary

upon these suffering men, and never omitting anything by which she might

minister to their comfort.

Thousands of soldiers can bear testimony to her unwearied labors; it is

not wanting, and will be her best reward. One of these writers says, "I

do assure you it affords me the greatest pleasure to be able to add my

testimony for that good, that noble that _blessed_ woman, Mrs. Taylor. I

was wounded at Port Hudson in May, 1863, and lay in the Barracks General

Hospital at New Orleans for over three months, when I had an excellent

opportunity to see and know her work. * * * She worked _every_ day in

the hospital--all her school salary she spent for the soldiers--night

after night she toiled, and long after others were at rest she was busy

for the suffering." And another makes it a matter of personal

thankfulness that he should have been applied to for information in

regard to this "blessed woman," and repeats his thanks "for himself and

hundreds of others," that her services are to be recorded in this book.

Having great facility in the use of her pen, Mrs. Taylor made herself

especially useful in writing letters for the soldiers. During the year

from January 1864 to January 1865, she wrote no less than eleven hundred

and seventy-four letters for these men, and even now, since the close of

the war, her labors in that direction do not end. She is in constant

communication with friends of soldiers in all parts of the country,

collecting for them every item of personal information in her power,

after spending hours in searching hospital records, and all other

available sources for obtaining the desired knowledge.

During the summer of 1864, her duties were more arduous than at any

other time. She distributed several thousands of dollars worth of goods,

for the Cincinnati Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, and

on the 1st of June, when her vacation commenced, she undertook the

management of the Dietetic Department in the University Hospital, the

largest in New Orleans. From that time till October 1st, she, with her

daughter and four other ladies, devoted like herself to the work, with

their own hands, with the assistance of one servant only, cooked,

prepared, and administered all the extra diet to the patients, numbering

frequently five or six hundred on diet, at one time.

Two of these ladies were constantly at the hospital, Mrs. Taylor

frequently four days in the week, and when not there, in other

hospitals, not allowing herself _one_ day at home during the whole

vacation. When obliged to return to her school, her daughter, Miss Alice

Taylor, took her place, and with the other ladies continued, Mrs. Taylor

giving her assistance on Saturday and Sunday, till January 1st, 1865,

when the hospital was finally closed.

Mrs. Taylor has been greatly aided by her children; her daughter, as

nobly patriotic as herself, in the beginning of the war refusing to

present a Confederate flag to a company unless beneath an arch

ornamented, and with music the same as on occasion of presenting a

banner to a political club the preceding year--_viz_: the arch decorated

with United States flags, and the national airs played. Her son

"Johnnie" is as well known and as beloved by the soldiers as his mother,

and well nigh sacrificed his noble little life to his unwearied efforts

in their behalf.

It is out of the fiery furnace of trial that such nobly devoted persons

as Mrs. Taylor and her family come forth to their mission of

beneficence. Persecuted, compelled to make the most terrible and trying

sacrifices, in dread and danger continually, the work of the loyal women

of the South stands pre-eminent, among the labors of the noble daughters

of America. And of these, Mrs. Taylor and her associates, and of Union

women throughout the South, it may well and truly be said, in the words

of Holy Writ: Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest

them all.

MRS. ADALINE TYLER.

Mrs. Tyler, the subject of the following sketch, is a native of

Massachusetts, and for many years was a resident of Boston, in which

city from her social position and her piety and benevolence she was

widely known. She is a devout member of the Protestant Episcopal Church,

greatly trusted and respected both by clergy and laity.

In 1856, she removed from Boston to Baltimore, Maryland. It was the

desire of Bishop Whittingham of that Diocese to institute there a

Protestant Sisterhood, or Order of Deaconesses, similar to those already

existing in Germany, England, and perhaps other parts of Europe. Mrs.

Tyler, then a widow, was invited to assume the superintendence of this

order--a band of noble and devout women who turning resolutely from the

world and its allurements and pleasures, desired to devote their lives

and talents to works of charity and mercy.

To care for the sick, to relieve all want and suffering so far as lay in

their power, to administer spiritual comfort, to give of their own

substance, and to be the almoners of those pious souls whose duties lay

in other directions, and whose time necessarily absorbed in other cares,

did not allow the same self-devotion--this was the mission which they

undertook, and for years prosecuted with untiring energy, and undoubted

success.

In addition to her general superintendence of the order, Mrs. Tyler

administered the affairs of the Church Home, a charitable Institution

conducted by the Sisterhood, and occupied herself in a variety of pious

and benevolent duties, among which were visiting the sick, and

comforting the afflicted and prisoners. Among other things she devoted

one day in each week to visiting the jail of Baltimore, at that time a

crowded and ill-conducted prison, and the abode of a great amount of

crime and suffering.

Mrs., then known as Sister Tyler, had been five years in Baltimore,

filling up the time with her varied duties and occupations, when the

storm that had so long threatened the land, burst in all the

thunderbolts of its fury. Secession had torn from the Union some of the

fairest portions of its domain, and already stood in hostile attitude

all along the borders of the free North. The President, on the 15th of

April, 1861, issued his first proclamation, announcing the presence of

rebellion, commanding the insurgents to lay down their arms and return

to their allegiance within twenty days, and calling on the militia of

the several loyal States to the number of seventy-five thousand, to

assemble for the defense of their country.

This proclamation, not unexpected at the North, yet sent a thrill of

mingled feeling all through its bounds. The order was promptly obeyed,

and without delay the masses prepared for the struggle which lay before

them, but of which, as yet, no prophetic visions foretold the progress

or result. Immediately regiment after regiment was hurried forward for

the protection of the Capitol, supposed to be the point most menaced.

Among these, and of the very earliest, was the Sixth Regiment

Massachusetts Volunteers, of which the nucleus was the Lowell City

Guards.

On the memorable and now historical 19th of April, this regiment while

hurrying to the defense of Washington was assailed by a fierce and angry

mob in the streets of Baltimore, and several of its men were murdered;

and this for marching to the defense of their country, to which the

citizens of Baltimore, their assailants, were equally pledged.

This occurred on a Friday, the day as before stated, set apart by Mrs.

Tyler for her weekly visit to the jail. The news of the riot reached

her as she was about setting out upon this errand of mercy, and caused

her to postpone her visit for several hours, as her way lay through some

portion of the disturbed district.

When, at last, she did go, a degree of quiet prevailed, though she saw

wounded men being conveyed to their homes, or to places where they might

be cared for, and it was evident that the public excitement had not

subsided with hostilities. Much troubled concerning the fate of the

Northern men--men, it must be remembered, of her own State--who had been

stricken down, she hastened to conclude as soon as possible her duties

at the jail, and returning homeward despatched a note to a friend asking

him to ascertain and inform her what had become of the wounded soldiers.

The reply soon came, with the tidings that they had been conveyed to one

of the Station Houses by the Police, and were said to have been cared

for, though the writer had not been allowed to enter and satisfy himself

that such was the case.

This roused the spirit of Mrs. Tyler. Here was truly a work of "charity

and mercy," and it was clearly her duty, in pursuance of the objects to

which she had devoted her life, to ensure the necessary care of these

wounded and suffering men who had fallen into the hands of those so

inimical to them.

It was now late in the afternoon. Mrs. Tyler sent for a carriage which

she was in the habit of using whenever need required, and the driver of

which was honest and personally friendly, though probably a

secessionist, and proceeded to the Station House. By this time it was

quite dark, and she was alone. Alighting she asked the driver to give

her whatever aid she might need, and to come to her should he even see

her beckon from a window, and he promised compliance.

She knocked at the door, but on telling her errand was denied

admittance, with the assurance that the worst cases had been sent to the

Infirmary, while those who were in the upper room of the Station House

had been properly cared for, and were in bed for the night. She again

asked to be allowed to see them, adding that the care of the suffering

was her life work, and she would like to assure herself that they needed

nothing. She was again denied more peremptorily than before.

"Very well," she replied, "I am myself a Massachusetts woman, seeking to

do good to the citizens of my own state. If not allowed to do so, I

shall immediately send a telegram to Governor Andrew, informing him that

my request is denied."

This spirited reply produced the desired result, and after a little

consultation among the officials, who probably found the Governor of a

State a much more formidable antagonist than a woman, coming alone on an

errand of mercy, the doors were opened and she was conducted to that

upper room where the fallen patriots lay.

Two were already dead. Two or three were in bed, the rest lay in their

misery upon stretchers, helpless objects of the tongue abuse of the

profane wretches who, "dressed in a little brief authority," walked up

and down, thus pouring out their wrath. All the wounded had been

drugged, and were either partially or entirely insensible to their

miseries. Some eight or ten hours had elapsed since the wounds were

received, but no attention had been paid to them, further than to

staunch the blood by thrusting into them large pieces of cotton cloth.

Even their clothes had not been removed. One of them (Coburn) had been

shot in the hip, another (Sergeant Ames) was wounded in the back of the

neck, just at the base of the brain, apparently by a heavy glass bottle,

for pieces of the glass yet remained in the wound, and lay in bed, still

in his soldier's overcoat, the rough collar of which irritated the

ghastly wound. These two were the most dangerously hurt.

Mrs. Tyler with some difficulty obtained these men, and procuring, by

the aid of her driver, a furniture van, had them laid upon it and

conveyed to her house, the Deaconesses' Home. Here a surgeon was called,

their wounds dressed, and she extended to them the care and kindness of

a mother, until they were so nearly well as to be able to proceed to

their own homes. She during this time refused protection from the

police, and declared that she felt no fears for her own safety while

thus strictly in the line of the duties to which her life was pledged.

This was by no means the last work of this kind performed by Sister

Tyler. Other wounded men were received and cared for by her--one a

German, member of a Pennsylvania Regiment, (who was accidentally shot by

one of his own comrades) whom she nursed to health in her own house.

For her efforts in behalf of the Massachusetts men she received the

personal acknowledgments of the Governor, President of the Senate, and

Speaker of the House of Representatives of that State, and afterwards

resolutions of thanks were passed by the Legislature, or General Court,

which, beautifully engrossed upon parchment, and sealed with the seal of

the Commonwealth, were presented to her.

In all that she did, Mrs. Tyler had the full approval of her Bishop, as

well as of her own conscience, while soon after at the suggestion of

Bishop Whittingham, the Surgeon-General offered, and indeed urged upon

her, the superintendency of the Camden Street Hospital, in the city of

Baltimore. Her experience in the management of the large institution she

had so long superintended, her familiarity with all forms of suffering,

as well as her natural tact and genius, and her high character,

eminently fitted her for this position.

Her duties were of course fulfilled in the most admirable manner, and

save that she sometimes came in contact with the members of some of the

volunteer associations of ladies who, in their commendable anxiety to

minister to the suffering soldiers, occasionally allowed their zeal to

get the better of their discretion, gave satisfaction to all concerned.

She did not live in the Hospital, but spent the greater part of the time

there during the year of her connection with it. Circumstances at last

decided her to leave. Her charge she turned over to Miss Williams, of

Boston, whom she had herself brought thither, and then went northward

to visit her friends.

She had not long been in the city of New York before she was urgently

desired by the Surgeon-General to take charge of a large hospital at

Chester, Pennsylvania, just established and greatly needing the

ministering aid of women. She accepted the appointment, and proceeding

to Boston selected from among her friends, and those who had previously

offered their services, a corps of excellent nurses, who accompanied her

to Chester.

In this hospital there was often from five hundred to one thousand sick

and wounded men, and Mrs. Tyler had use enough for the ample stores of

comforts which, by the kindness of her friends in the east, were

continually arriving. Indeed there was never a time when she was not

amply supplied with these, and with money for the use of her patients.

She remained at Chester a year, and was then transferred to Annapolis,

where she was placed in charge of the Naval School Hospital, remaining

there until the latter part of May, 1864.

This was a part of her service which perhaps drew more heavily than any

other upon the sympathies and heart of Mrs. Tyler. Here, during the

period of her superintendency, the poor wrecks of humanity from the

prison pens of Andersonville and Belle Isle were brought, an assemblage

of such utter misery, such dreadful suffering, that words fail in the

description of it. Here indeed was a "work of charity and mercy," such

as had never before been presented to this devoted woman; such, indeed,

as the world had never seen.

Most careful, tender, and kindly were the ministrations of Mrs. Tyler

and her associates--a noble band of women--to these wretched men. Filth,

disease, and starvation had done their work upon them. Emaciated, till

only the parchment-like skin covered the protruding bones, many of them

too feeble for the least exertion, and their minds scarcely stronger

than their bodies, they were indeed a spectacle to inspire, as they

did, the keenest sympathy, and to call for every effort of kindness.

Mrs. Tyler procured a number of photographs of these wretched men,

representing them in all their squalor and emaciation. These were the

first which were taken, though the Government afterwards caused some to

be made which were widely distributed. With these Mrs. Tyler did much

good. She had a large number of copies printed in Boston, after her

return there, and both in this country and in Europe, which she

afterwards visited, often had occasion to bring them forward as

unimpeachable witnesses of the truth of her own statements. Sun pictures

cannot lie, and the sun's testimony in these brought many a heart

shudderingly to a belief which it had before scouted. In Europe,

particularly, both in England and upon the Continent, these pictures

compelled credence of those tales of the horrors and atrocities of rebel

prison pens, which it had long been the fashion to hold as mere

sensation stories, and libels upon the chivalrous South.

Whenever referring to her work at Annapolis for the returned prisoners,

Mrs. Tyler takes great pleasure in expressing her appreciation of the

valuable and indefatigable services of the late Dr. Vanderkieft, Surgeon

in charge of the Naval School Hospital. In his efforts to resuscitate

the poor victims of starvation and cruelty, he was indefatigable, never

sparing himself, but bestowing upon them his unwearied personal

attention and sympathy. In this he was aided by his wife, herself a true

Sister of Charity.

Mrs. Tyler also gives the highest testimony to the services and personal

worth of her co-workers, Miss Titcomb, Miss Hall, and others, who gave

themselves with earnest zeal to the cause, and feels how inadequate

would have been her utmost efforts amid the multitude of demands, but

for their aid. It is to them chiefly due that so many healthy

recreations, seasons of amusement and religious instruction were given

to the men.

During and subsequent to the superintendency of Mrs. Tyler at Annapolis

a little paper was published weekly at the hospital, under the title of

"The Crutch." This was well supplied with articles, many of them of real

merit, both by officials and patients. Whenever an important movement

took place, or a battle, it was the custom to issue a small extra giving

the telegraphic account; when, if it were a victory, the feeble

sufferers who had sacrificed so much for their country, would spend the

last remnants of their strength, and make the very welkin ring, with

their shouts of gladness.

Exhausted by her labors, and the various calls upon her efforts, Mrs.

Tyler, in the spring of 1864, was at length obliged to send in her

resignation. Her health seemed utterly broken down, and her physicians

and friends saw in an entire change of air and scene the best hope of

her recovery. She had for some time been often indisposed, and her

illness at last terminated in fever and chills. Though well accustomed

during her long residence to the climate of Maryland, she no longer

possessed her youthful powers of restoration and reinvigoration. Her

physicians advised a sea voyage as essential to her recovery, and a tour

to Europe was therefore determined upon.

She left the Naval School Hospital on the 27th of May, 1864, and set

sail from New York on the 15th of June.

The disease did not succumb at once, as was hoped. She endured extreme

illness and lassitude during her voyage, and was completely prostrated

on her arrival in Paris where she lay three weeks ill, before being able

to proceed by railroad to Lucerne, Switzerland, and rejoin her sister

who had been some months in Europe, and who, with her family, were to be

the traveling companions of Mrs. Tyler. Arrived at Lucerne, she was

again prostrated by chills and fever, and only recovered after removal

to the dryer climate of Berlin. The next year she was again ill with the

same disease after a sojourn among the dykes and canals of Holland.

Mrs. Tyler spent about eighteen months in Europe, traveling over various

parts of the Continent, and England, where she remained four or five

months, returning to her native land in November, 1865, to find the

desolating war which had raged here at the time of her departure at an

end. Her health had been by this time entirely re-established, and she

is happy in the belief that long years of usefulness yet remain to her.

Ardent and fearless in her loyalty to her Government, Mrs. Tyler had

ample opportunities, never neglected, to impress the truth in regard to

our country and its great struggle for true liberty, upon the minds of

persons of all classes in Europe. Her letters of introduction from her

friends, from Bishop Whittingham and others, brought her into frequent

contact with people of cultivation and refinement who, like the masses,

yet held the popular belief in regard to the oppression and abuse of the

South by the North, a belief which Mrs. Tyler even at the risk of

offending numerous Southern friends by her championship, was sure to

combat. Like other intelligent loyal Americans she was thus the means of

spreading right views, and accomplishing great good, even while in

feeble health and far from her own country. For her services in this

regard she might well have been named a Missionary of Truth and Liberty.

One instance of her experience in contact with Southern sympathizers

with the Rebellion, we take the liberty to present to the readers of

this sketch. Mrs. Tyler was in London when the terrible tidings of that

last and blackest crime of the Rebellion--the assassination of Abraham

Lincoln was received. She was paying a morning visit to an American

friend, a Southerner and a Christian, when the door was suddenly thrust

open and a fiendish-looking man rushed in, vociferating, "Have you heard

the news? Old Abe is assassinated! Seward too! Johnson escaped. Now if

God will send an earthquake and swallow up the whole North--men, women,

and children, _I_ will say His name be praised!"

All this was uttered as in one breath, and then the restless form, and

fierce inflamed visage as suddenly disappeared, leaving horrid

imprecations upon the ears of the listeners, who never supposed the

fearful tale could be true. Mrs. Tyler's friend offered the only

extenuation possible--the man had "been on board the Alabama and was

very bitter." But in Mrs. Tyler's memory that fearful deed is ever

mingled with that fiendish face and speech.

The next day the Rebel Commissioner Mason, replying to some remarks of

the American Minister, Mr. Adams, in the Times, took occasion most

emphatically to deprecate the insinuation that the South had any

knowledge of, or complicity in this crime.

MRS. WILLIAM H. HOLSTEIN.

At the opening of the war Mrs. Holstein was residing in a most pleasant

and delightful country home at Upper Merion, Montgomery County,

Pennsylvania. In the words of one who knows and appreciates her

well--"Mr. and Mrs. Holstein are people of considerable wealth, and

unexceptionable social position, beloved and honored by all who know

them, who voluntarily abandoned their beautiful home to live for years

in camps and hospitals. Their own delicacy and modesty would forbid them

to speak of the work they accomplished, and no one can ever know the

greatness of its results."

As Mrs. Holstein was always accompanied by her husband, and this devoted

pair were united in this great patriotic and kindly work, as in all the

other cases, duties and pleasures of life, it would be almost

impossible, even if it were necessary, to give any separate account of

her services for the army. This is shown in the following extracts from

a letter, probably not intended for publication, but which, in a spirit

far removed from that of self-praise, gives an account of the motives

and feelings which actuated her, and of the opening scenes of her public

services.

"The story of my work, blended as it is, (and should be) so intimately

with that of my husband, in his earnest wish to carry out what we felt

to be simply a matter of duty, is like an 'oft told tale' not worth

repeating. Like all other loyal women in our land, at the first sound

and threatening of war, there sprang up in my heart an uncontrollable

impulse _to do, to act_; for _anything_ but idleness when our country

was in peril and her sons marching to battle.

"It seemed that the only help woman could give was in providing comforts

for the sick and wounded, and to this, for a time, I gave my undivided

attention. I felt sure there was work for _me_ to do in this war; and

when my mother would say 'I hope, my child, it will not be in the

hospitals,'--my response was ever the same--'Wherever or whatever it may

be, it shall be done with all my heart.'

"At length came the battle of Antietam, and from among us six ladies

went to spend ten days in caring for the wounded. But craven-like, I

shrank instinctively from such scenes, and declined to join the party.

But when my husband returned from there, one week after the battle,

relating such unheard of stories of suffering, and of the help that was

needed, I hesitated no longer. In a few days we collected a car load of

boxes, containing comforts and delicacies for the wounded, and had the

satisfaction of taking them promptly to their destination.

"The _first_ wounded and the _first_ hospitals I saw I shall never

forget, for then flashed across my mind, '_This_ is the work God has

given you to do,' and the vow was made, 'While the war lasts we stand

pledged to aid, as far as is in our power, the sick and suffering. _We_

have no _right_ to the comforts of _our_ home, while so many of the

noblest of our land so willingly renounce theirs.' The scenes of

Antietam are graven as with an 'iron pen' upon my mind. The place ever

recalls throngs of horribly wounded men strewn in every direction. So

fearful it all looked to me _then_, that I thought the choking sobs and

blinding tears would never admit of my being of any use. To suppress

them, and to learn to be calm under all circumstances, was one of the

hardest lessons the war taught.

"We gave up our sweet country home, and from that date were 'dwellers

in tents,' occupied usually in field hospitals, choosing that work

because there was the greatest need, and knowing that while many were

willing to work at home, but few could go to the front."

From that time, the early autumn of 1862, until July, 1865, Mrs.

Holstein was constantly devoted to the work, not only in camps and

hospitals, but in traveling from place to place and enlisting the more

energetic aid of the people by lecturing and special appeals.

At Antietam Mrs. Holstein found the men she had come to care for, those

brave, suffering men, lying scattered all over the field, in barns and

sheds, under the shelter of trees and fences, in need of every comfort,

but bearing their discomforts and pain without complaint or murmuring,

and full of gratitude to those who had it in their power to do anything,

ever so little, for their relief.

Here she encountered the most trying scenes--a boy of seventeen crying

always for his mother to come to him, or to be permitted to go to her,

till the great stillness of death fell upon him; agonized wives seeking

the remains of the lost, sorrowing relatives, of all degrees, some

confirmed in their worst fears, some reassured and grateful--a constant

succession of bewildering emotions, of hope, fear, sadness and joy.

The six ladies from her own town, were still for a long time busy in

their work of mercy distributing freely, as they had been given, the

supplies with which they had been provided. This was eminently a work of

faith. Often the stores, of one, or of many kinds, would be exhausted,

but in no instance did Providence fail to immediately replenish those

most needed.

During the stay of Mr. and Mrs. Holstein in Sharpsburg, an ambulance was

daily placed at their disposal, and they were continually going about

with it and finding additional cases in need of every comfort. Supplies

were continually sent from friends at home, and they remained until the

wounded had all left save a few who were retained at Smoketown and

Locust Spring Hospitals.

While the army rested in the vicinity of Sharpsburg, scores of fever

patients came pouring in, making a fearful addition to the hospital

patients, and greatly adding to the mortality.

The party, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Holstein and a friend of theirs, a

lady, remained until their services were no longer required, and then,

about the 1st of December, returned home. Busied in arrangement for the

collection and forwarding of stores, and in making trips to Antietam,

Harper's Ferry, and Frederick City, on similar business, the days wore

away until the battle of Fredericksburg. Soon after this they went to

Virginia, and entered the Second Corps Hospital near Falmouth. There in

a Sibley tent whose only floor was of the branches of the pines--in that

little Hospital on the bleak hill-side, the winter wore slowly away. The

needful army movements had rendered the muddy roads impassable. No

chaplain came to the camp until these roads were again in good order.

Men sickened and died with no other religious services performed in

their hearing than the simple reading of Scripture and prayers which

Mrs. Holstein was in the habit of using for them, and which were always

gladly listened to.

Just previous to the battle of Chancellorsville, Mrs. Holstein returned

home for a few days, and was detained on coming back to her post by the

difficulty of getting within the lines. She found the hospital moved

some two miles from its former location, and that many of her former

patients had died, or suffered much in the change. After the battle

there was of course a great accession of wounded men. Some had lain long

upon the field--one group for eleven days, with wounds undressed, and

almost without food. The rebels, finding they did not die, reluctantly

fed them with some of their miserable corn bread, and afterwards sent

them within the Union lines.

The site of the hospital where Mrs. Holstein was now stationed, was very

beautiful. The surgeon in charge had covered the sloping hill-side with

a flourishing garden. The convalescents had slowly and painfully planted

flower seeds, and built rustic arbors. All things had begun to assume

the aspect of a beautiful home.

But suddenly, on the 13th of June, 1863, while at dinner, the order was

received to break up the hospital. In two hours the wounded men, so

great was their excitement at the thought of going toward _home_, were

on their way to Washington.

All was excitement, in fact. The army was all in motion as soon as

possible. Through the afternoon the work of destruction went on. As

little as possible was left for the enemy, and when Mrs. Holstein awoke

the following morning, the plain below was covered by a living mass, and

the bayonets were gleaming in the brilliant sunlight, as the long lines

were put in motion, and the Army of the Potomac began its northern

march.

Mr. and Mrs. Holstein accompanied it, bearing all its dangers and

discomforts in company with the men with whom they had for the time cast

their lot. The heat, dust, and fatigue were dreadful, and danger from

the enemy was often imminent. At Sangster's Station, the breaking down

of a bridge delayed the crossing of the infantry, and the order was

given to reduce the officers' baggage to twenty pounds.

Then came many of the officers to beg leave to entrust to the care of

Mr. and Mrs. Holstein, money and valuables. They received both in large

amounts, and had the satisfaction of carrying all safely, and having

them delivered at last to their rightful owners.

At Union Mills a battle was considered imminent, and Mrs. Holstein's

tent in the rear of the Union army, was within bugle call of the rebel

lines. In the morning it was deemed best for them to proceed by railroad

to Alexandria and Washington, whence they could readily return whenever

needed.

At Washington, Mr. Holstein was threatened by an attack of malarious

fever, and they returned at once to their home. While there, and he

still unable to move, the battle of Gettysburg was fought. In less than

a week he left his bed, and the devoted pair proceeded thither to renew

their services, where they were then so greatly needed.

Mrs. Holstein's first night in this town was passed upon the parlor

floor of a hotel, with only a satchel for a pillow, where fatigue made

her sleep soundly. The morning saw them at the Field Hospital of the

Second Corps, where they were enthusiastically welcomed by their old

friends. Here, side by side, just as they had been brought in from the

field, lay friends and enemies.

Experience had taught Mr. and Mrs. Holstein how and what to do. Very

soon their tent was completed, their "Diet Kitchen" arranged, the

valuable supplies they had brought with them ready for distribution, and

their work moving on smoothly and beneficially amid all the horrors of

this terrible field.

"There," reports Mrs. Holstein, "as in all places where I have known our

brave Union soldiers, they bore their sufferings bravely, I might almost

say _exultingly_, because they were for 'The Flag' and our country."

The scenes of horror and of sadness enacted there, have left their

impress upon the mind of Mrs. Holstein in unfading characters. And yet,

amidst these there were some almost ludicrous, as for instance, that of

the soldier, White, of the Twentieth Massachusetts, who, supposed to be

dead, was borne, with two of his comrades, to the grave side, but

revived under the rude shock with which the stretcher was set down, and

looking down into the open grave in which lay a brave lieutenant of his

own regiment, declared, with grim fun, that he would not be "buried by

that raw recruit," and ordered the men to "carry him back." This man,

though fearfully wounded in the throat, actually lived and recovered.

The government was now well equipped with stores and supplies, but Mrs.

Holstein writes her testimony, with that of all others, to the most

valuable supplementary aid of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions,

in caring for the vast army of wounded and suffering upon this dreadful

field.

By the 7th of August all had been removed who were able to bear

transportation, to other hospitals. Three thousand remained, who were

placed in the United States General Hospital on York Turnpike. The

Second Corps Hospital was merged in this, and Mrs. Holstein remained as

its matron until its close, and was fully occupied until the removal of

the hospital and the dedication of the National Cemetery.

She then returned home, but after rest she was requested by the Sanitary

Commission to commence a tour among the Aid Societies of the State, for

the purpose of telling the ladies all that her experience had taught her

of the soldier's needs, and the best way of preparing and forwarding

clothing, delicacies and supplies of all kinds. She felt it impossible

to be idle, and however disagreeable this task, she would not shrink

from it. The earnestness with which she was listened to, and the

consciousness of the good to result from her labors, sustained her all

through the arduous winter's work, during which she often met two or

three audiences for an "hour and a half talk," in the course of the day.

Her husband as usual accompanied her, and in the spring, with the

commencement of Grant's campaign over the Rapidan, they both went

forward as agents of the Sanitary Commission.

Through all this dread campaign they worked devotedly. They could not

rest to be appalled by its horrors. They could not think of the grandeur

of its conceptions or the greatness of its victories--they could only

work and wait for leisure to grasp the wonder of the passing events. As

Mrs. Holstein herself says: "While living amidst so much excitement--in

the times which form history--we were unconscious of it all--it was our

daily life!"

Of that long period, Mrs. Holstein records two grand experiences as

conspicuous--the salute which followed the news of the completion of

Sherman's "March to the Sea," and the explosion of the mine at City

Point.

With the first, one battery followed another with continuous

reverberation, till all the air was filled with the roar of artillery.

The other was more awful. The explosion was fearful. The smoke rose in

form like a gigantic umbrella, and from its midst radiated every kind of

murderous missile--shells were thrown and burst in all directions,

muskets and every kind of arms fell like a shower around. Comparatively

few were killed--many of the men were providentially out of the way.

Until the revelations upon the trial of Wirz, it was supposed to have

been caused by an accident, but then men learned that it was part of a

fiendish plot to destroy lives and Government property.

The summer of 1864 was noted for its intense heat and dust, but Mr. and

Mrs. Holstein remained with the army, absorbed in their work, till

November, when Mr. Holstein's health again failed and they went home for

rest. It was not thought prudent for them to return, and Mrs. Holstein,

still accompanied by him, resumed her travels and spent some time in

"talking" to the women and children of the State. She had the

satisfaction of establishing several societies which worked vigorously

during the remainder of the war.

In January, 1865, they went to Annapolis to do what they could for the

returned Andersonville prisoners, and to learn their actual condition

and sufferings that Mrs. Holstein might have a better hold upon the

minds of the people, to whom she talked. Let us give these brief

allusions to her experiences here, in her own words.

"All of horror I had seen, or known, throughout the war, faded into

insignificance when contrasted with the results of this heinous _sin_--a

systematic course of starvation of brave men, made captive by the

chances of war. * * * My note-book is filled with fearful records of

suffering, and hardships unparalleled, written just as I took the

statements from the fleshless lips of these living skeletons. In

appearance they reminded me more of the bodies I had seen washed out

upon Antietam, and other battle-fields, than of anything else--only

_they_ had ceased to suffer and were at rest,--_these_ were still

living, breathing, helpless _skeletons_.

'In treason's prison-hold

Their martyred spirits grew

To stature like the saints of old,

While, amid agonies untold,

They _starved_ for _me_--and _you_.'

"We remained at Annapolis from January to July, when, the war being

closed, the men were mustered out of service. The few remaining were

sent to Baltimore, and the hospitals were vacated and restored to their

former uses.

"Much of the summer was occupied in unfinished hospital work, and in

looking after some special cases of great interest. The final close of

the war brought with it, for the first time in all these long years,

_perfect rest_ to overtasked mind and wearied body."

MRS. CORDELIA A. P. HARVEY

The State of Wisconsin is justly proud of a name, which, while standing

for what is noble and true in man, has received an added lustre in being

made to express also, the sympathy, the goodness, and the power of

woman. The death of the honored husband, and the public labors of the

heroic wife, in the same cause--the great cause that has absorbed the

attention and the resources of the country for four years--have given

each to the other a peculiar and thrilling interest to every loyal

American heart.

It will be remembered that shortly after the battle of Shiloh, Governor

Harvey proceeded to the front with supplies and medical aid to assist in

caring for the wounded among the soldiers from his State, after

rendering great service in alleviating their sufferings by the aid and

comfort he brought with him, and reviving their spirits by his presence.

As he was about to embark at Savannah for home, in passing from one boat

to another, he fell into the river and was drowned. This was on the 19th

of April, 1862, a day made memorable by some of the most important

events in our country's history. Two days before he wrote to Mrs. Harvey

the last sacred letter as follows:

"PITTSBURG LANDING, _April 17, 1862_.

"DEAR WIFE:--Yesterday was _the day_ of my life. Thank God for the

impulse that brought me here. I am well and have done more good by

coming than I can well tell you. In haste,

"LOUIS."

[Illustration: MRS. CORDELIA A. P. HARVEY.

Eng^d. by A.H. Ritchie.]

With these words ringing in her ears as from beyond the tomb, the

conviction forced itself upon her mind that the path of duty for her lay

in the direction he had so faithfully pointed out. But for a while

womanly feeling overcame all else, and she gave way beneath the shock of

her affliction, coming so suddenly and taking away at once the pride,

the hope, and the joy of life. For many weeks it seemed that the tie

that bound her to the departed was stronger than that which held her to

the earth, and her friends almost despaired of seeing her again herself.

Hers was indeed a severe affliction. A husband, beloved and honored by

all, without a stain upon his fair fame, with a bright future and hope

of long life before him, had fallen--suddenly as by a bullet--at the

front, where his great heart had led him to look after the wants of his

own brave troops--fallen to be remembered with the long list of heroes

who have died that their country might live, and in making themselves

immortal, have made a people great. Nor was this sacrifice without its

fruit. It was this that put it into her heart to work for the soldiers,

and from the grave of HARVEY have sprung those flowers of Love and Mercy

whose fragrance has filled the land.

Looking back now, it is easy to see how much this bereavement had to do

in fitting Mrs. Harvey for her work. It is the experience of sorrow that

prepares us to minister to others in distress. At home none could say

they had given more for their country than she, few could feel a sorrow

she had not known or with which she could not sympathize, out of

something in her own experience. In the army, in camps and hospitals,

who so fit to speak in the place of wife or mother to the sick and dying

soldier, as she, in whom the tenderest feelings of the heart had been

touched by the hand of Death?

With the intention of devoting herself to this work, she asked of the

Governor permission to visit hospitals in the Western Department, as

agent for the State, which was cordially granted, and early in the

autumn of 1862, set out for St. Louis to commence her new work.

To a lady who had seen nothing of military life, of course, all was

strange. The experiment she was making was one in which very many

kind-hearted women have utterly failed--rushing to hospitals from the

impulse of a tender sympathy, only to make themselves obnoxious to the

surgeons by their impertinent zeal, and, by their inexperience and

indiscretion, useless, and sometimes detrimental, to the patients. With

the wisdom that has marked her course throughout, she at once

comprehended the delicacy of the situation, and was not long in

perceiving what she could best do, and wherein she could accomplish the

most good. The facility with which she brought, not only her own best

powers, but the influence universally accorded to her position, to bear

for the benefit of the suffering soldiers, is subject of remark and

wonder among all who have witnessed her labors.

At that time St. Louis was the theater of active military operations,

and the hospitals were crowded with sick and wounded from the camps and

battle-fields of Missouri and Tennessee. The army was not then composed

of the hardy veterans whose prowess has since carried victory into every

rebellious State, but of boys and young men unused to hardship, who, in

the flush of enthusiasm, had entered the army. Time had not then brought

to its present perfection the work of the Medical Department, and but

for the spontaneous generosity of the people in sending forward

assistance and supplies for the sick and wounded, the army could

scarcely have existed. Such was the condition of things when Mrs. Harvey

commenced her work of mercy in visiting the hospitals of that city,

filled with the victims of battle and disease. How from morning till

night for many a weary week she waited by the cots of these poor

fellows, attending to their little wants, and speaking words of cheer

and comfort, those who knew her then all well remember. The work at once

became delightful and profitable to her, calling her mind away from its

own sorrows to the physical suffering of those around her. In her

eagerness to soothe their woes, she half forgot her own, and came to

them always with a joyous smile and words of cheerful consolation.

During her stay in St. Louis her home was at the hospitable mansion of

George Partridge, Esq., an esteemed member of the Western Sanitary

Commission, whose household seem to have vied with each other in

attention and kindness to their guest.

Hearing of great suffering at Cape Girardeau, she went there about the

1st of August, just as the First Wisconsin Cavalry were returning from

their terrible expedition through the swamps of Arkansas. She had last

seen them in all their pride and manly beauty, reviewed by her husband,

the Governor, before they left their State. Now how changed! The

strongest, they that could stand, just tottering about, the very shadows

of their former selves. The building taken as a temporary hospital, was

filled to overflowing, and the surgeons were without hospital supplies,

the men subsisting on the common army ration alone. The heat was

oppressive, and the diseases of the most fearfully contagious character.

The surgeons themselves were appalled, and the attendants shrank from

the care of the sick and the removal of the dead. In one room she found

a corpse which had evidently lain for many hours, the nurses fearing to

go near and see if the man was dead. With her own hands she bound up the

face, and emboldened by her coolness, the burial party were induced to

coffin the body and remove it from the house. Here was a field for

self-forgetfulness and heroic devotion to a holy cause; and here the

light of woman's sympathy shone brightly when all else was fear and

gloom. Patients dying with the noxious camp fever breathed into her ear

their last messages to loved ones at home, as she passed from cot to

cot, undaunted by the bolts of death which fell around her thick as on

the battle-field. She set herself to work procuring furloughs for such

as were able to travel, and discharges for the permanently disabled, to

get them away from a place of death. To this end she brought all the

art of woman to work. Once convinced that the object she sought was just

and right, she left no honorable means untried to secure it. Surgeons

were flattered and coaxed, whenever coaxing and flattering availed; or,

failing in this, she knew when to administer a gentle threat, or an

intimation that a report might go up to a higher official. One resource

failing she always had another, and never attempted anything without

carrying it out.

Mrs. Harvey relates many touching incidents of her experience at this

place which want of space forbids us to repeat. One of her first acts

was to telegraph Mr. Yeatman, President of the Western Sanitary

Commission, at St. Louis, for hospital stores, and in two days, by his

promptness and liberality, she received an abundant supply.

After several weeks' stay at Cape Girardeau, during which time the

condition of the hospital greatly improved, Mrs. Harvey continued her

tour of visitation which was to embrace all the general hospitals on the

Mississippi river, as well as the regimental hospitals of the troops of

her own State. Her face, cheerful with all the heart's burden of grief,

gladdened every ward where lay a Union soldier, from Keokuk as far down

as the sturdy legions of GRANT had regained possession of the Father of

Waters.

At Memphis she was able to do great service in procuring furloughs for

men who would else have died. Often has the writer heard brave men

declare, with tearful eyes, their gratitude to her for favors of this

kind. Many came to have a strange and almost superstitious reverence for

a person exercising so powerful an influence, and using it altogether

for the good of the common soldier. The estimate formed of her authority

by some of the more ignorant class, often exhibited itself in an

extremely ludicrous manner. She would sometimes receive letters from

homesick men begging her to give them a furlough to visit their

families! and often, from deserters and others confined in military

prisons, asking to be set at liberty, and promising faithful service

thereafter!

The spring of 1863 found General Grant making his approaches upon the

last formidable position held by the rebels on the Mississippi. Young's

Point, across the river from Vicksburg, the limit of uninterrupted

navigation at that time, will be remembered by many as a place of great

suffering to our brave boys. The high water covering the low lands on

which they were encamped during the famous canal experiment, induced

much sickness. Intent to be where her kind offices were most needed,

Mrs. Harvey proceeded thither about the first of April. After a few

weeks' labor, she, herself, overcome by the terrible miasma, was taken

seriously ill, and was obliged to return homeward. Months of rest, and a

visit to the sea-side, were required to bring back a measure of her

wonted strength, and so for the summer her services were lost to the

army.

But though for a while withheld from her chosen work, Mrs. Harvey never

forgot the sick soldier. Her observation while with the army, convinced

her of the necessity of establishing general hospitals in the Northern

States, where soldiers suffering from diseases incurable in the South,

might be sent with prospect of recovery. Her own personal experience

deepened her conviction, and, although the plan found little favor then

among high officials, she at once gave her heart to its accomplishment.

Although repeated efforts had been made in vain to lead the Government

into this policy, Mrs. Harvey determined to go to Washington and make

her plea in person to the president.

As the result of her interview with Mr. Lincoln, which was of the most

cordial character, a General Hospital was granted to the State of

Wisconsin; and none who visit the city of Madison can fail to observe,

with patriotic pride, the noble structure known as Harvey Hospital. As

proof of the service it has done, and as fully verifying the arguments

urged by Mrs. Harvey to secure its establishment, the reader is

referred to the reports of the surgeon in charge of the hospital.

Her mission at Washington accomplished, Mrs. Harvey returned immediately

home, where she soon received official intelligence that the hospital

would be located at Madison and be prepared for the reception of

patients at the earliest possible moment. Upon this, she went

immediately to Memphis, Tennessee, where she was informed by the medical

director of the Sixteenth Army Corps, that there were over one hundred

men in Fort Pickering (used as a Convalescent Camp) who had been

vacillating between camp and hospital for a year, and who would surely

die unless removed North. At his suggestion, she accompanied these sick

men up the river, to get them, if possible, north of St. Louis. She

landed at Cairo, and proceeded to St. Louis by rail, and, on the arrival

of the transport, had transportation to Madison ready for the men. As

they were needy, and had not been paid, she procured of the Western

Sanitary Commission a change of clothing for every one. Out of the whole

number, only seven died, and only five were discharged. The remainder

returned, strong and healthy, to the service.

Returning South, she visited all points on the river down to New

Orleans, coming back to make her home for the time at Vicksburg, as the

place nearest the centre of her field of labor. The Superintendent and

Matrons of the Soldiers' Home extended to her a hearty welcome, happy to

have their institution honored by her presence, and receive her

sympathizing and kindly aid. So substantial was the reputation she had

won among the army, that her presence alone, at a military post in the

West, was a power for good. Officers and attendants in charge of

hospitals knew how quick she was to apprehend and bring to light any

delinquency in the performance of their duties, and profited by this

knowledge to the mutual advantage of themselves and those thrown upon

their care.

During the summer of 1864, the garrison of Vicksburg suffered much from

diseases incident to the season in that latitude. Perhaps in no regiment

was the mortality greater than in the Second Wisconsin Cavalry. Strong

men sickened and died within a few days, and others lingered on for

weeks, wasting by degrees, till only skin and bone were left. The

survivors, in evidence of their appreciation of her sympathy and

exertions for them in their need, presented her an elegant enameled gold

watch, beautifully set with diamonds. The presentation was an occasion

on which she could not well avoid a public appearance, and those who

were present, must have wondered that one of such power in private

conversation should have so little control, even of her own feelings,

before an assembly. Mrs. Harvey has never distinguished herself as a

_public_ speaker. Resolute, impetuous, confident to a degree bordering

on the imperious, with power of denunciation to equip an orator, she yet

shrinks from the gaze of a multitude with a woman's modesty, and the

humility of a child. She does not underestimate the worth of true

womanhood by attempting to act a distinctively manly part.

Although known as the agent of the State of Wisconsin, Mrs. Harvey has

paid little regard to state lines, and has done a truly national work.

Throughout the time of her stay with the army, applications for her aid

came as often from the soldiers of other states as from those of her

own, and no one was ever refused relief if to obtain it was in her

power. Acting in the character of a friend to every Union soldier, from

whatever state, she has had the entire confidence of the great Sanitary

Commissions, and rendered to their agents invaluable aid in the

distribution of goods. The success that has everywhere attended Mrs.

Harvey's efforts, directly or indirectly, to benefit the soldier, has

given to her life an unusual charm, and established for her a national

reputation.

In years to come, the war-scarred veteran will recount to listening

children around the domestic hearth, along with many a thrilling deed of

valor performed by his own right arm, the angel visits of this lady to

his cot, when languishing with disease, or how, when ready to die, her

intercessions secured him a furlough, and sent him home to feel the

curative power of his native air and receive the care of loving hands

and hearts. Not a few unfortunates will remember, if they do not tell,

how her care reached them, not only in hospital but in prison as well,

bringing clothing and comfort to them when shivering in their rags;

while others, again, will not be ashamed to relate, as we have heard

them, with tears, their gratitude for release from unjust imprisonment,

secured by her faithful exertions.

The close of the war has brought Mrs. Harvey back to her home, and

closed her work for the soldiers. Her attention now is turned in the

direction of soothing the sorrows the war has caused among the

households of her State. Many a soldier who has died for his country,

has left his little ones to the charity of the world. Through her

exertions the State of Wisconsin now has a Soldiers' Orphan Asylum,

where all these children of our dead heroes shall be gathered in. By a

visit to Washington she has recently obtained from the United States

Government, the donation of its interest in Harvey Hospital, and has

turned it into an institution of this kind, and has set her hand and

heart to the work of securing from the people a liberal endowment for

it.

Happy indeed has she been in her truly Christian work, begun in sadness

and opening into the joy that crowns every good work. The benedictions

of thousands of the brave and victorious rest upon her, and the purest

spirits of the martyred ones have her in their gentle care! May America

be blest with many more like her to teach us by example the nature and

practice of a true Christian heroism.

MRS. SARAH R. JOHNSTON.

Our northern women have won the highest meed of praise for their

devotion and self-sacrifice in the cause of their country, but great as

their labors and sacrifices have been, they are certainly inferior to

those of some of the loyal women of the South, who for the love they

bore to their country and its flag, braved all the contempt, obloquy and

scorn which Southern women could heap upon them--who lived for years in

utter isolation from the society of relatives, friends, and neighbors,

because they would render such aid and succor as was in their power to

the defenders of the national cause, in prison, in sorrow and in

suffering. Often were the lives of those brave women in danger, and the

calmness with which they met those who thirsted for their blood gave

evidence of their position of a spirit as undaunted and lofty as any

which ever faced the cannon's mouth or sought death in the high places

of the field. Among these heroines none deserves a higher place in the

records of womanly patriotism and courage than Mrs. Sarah R. Johnston.

At the breaking out of the war Mrs. Johnston was teaching a school at

Salisbury, North Carolina, where she was born and always resided. When

the first prisoners were brought into that place, the Southern women

turned out in their carriages and with a band escorted them through the

town, and when they filed past saluted them with contemptuous epithets.

From that time Mrs. Johnston determined to devote herself to the

amelioration of the condition of the prisoners; and the testimony of

thousands of the Union soldiers confined there proved how nobly she

performed the duties she undertook. It was no easy task, for she was

entirely alone, being the only woman who openly advocated Union

sentiments and attempted to administer to the wants of the prisoners.

For fifteen months none of the women of Salisbury spoke to her or called

upon her, and every possible indignity was heaped on her as a "Yankee

sympathizer." Her scholars were withdrawn from her school, and it was

broken up, and her means were very limited; nevertheless, she

accomplished more by systematic arrangements than many would have done

with a large outlay of money.

When the first exchange of prisoners was made, she went to the depot to

arrange some pallets for some of the sick who were leaving, when she

stumbled in the crowd, and looking down she found a young Federal

soldier who had fainted and fallen, and was in danger of being trodden

to death. She raised him up and called for water, but none of the people

would get a drop to save a "Yankee's" life. Some of the soldiers who

were in the cars threw their canteens to her, and she succeeded in

reviving him; during this time the crowd heaped upon her every insulting

epithet they could think of, and her life even was in danger. But she

braved all, and succeeded in obtaining permission from Colonel Godwin,

then in command of the post, who was a kind-hearted man, to let her

remove him to her own house, promising to take care of him as if he were

her own son, and if he died to give him Christian burial. He was in the

last stages of consumption, and she felt sure he would die if taken to

the prison hospital. None of the citizens of the place would even assist

in carrying him, and after a time two gentlemen from Richmond stepped

forward and helped convey him to her house. There she watched over him

for hours, as he was in a terrible state from neglect, having had

blisters applied to his chest which had never been dressed and were full

of vermin.

The poor boy, whose name was Hugh Berry, from Ohio, only lived a few

days, and she had a grave dug for him in her garden in the night, for

burial had been refused in the public graveyard, and she had been

threatened that if she had him interred decently his body should be dug

up and buried in the street. They even attempted to take his body from

the house for that purpose, but she stood at her door, pistol in hand,

and said to them that the first man who dared to cross her threshold for

such a purpose should be shot like a dog. They did not attempt it, and

she performed her promise to the letter.

During the first two years she was enabled to do a great many acts of

kindness for the prisoners, but after that time she was watched very

closely as a Yankee sympathizer, and the rules of the prison were

stricter, and what she could do was done by strategy.

Her means were now much reduced, but she still continued in her good

work, cutting up her carpets and spare blankets to make into moccasins,

and when new squads of prisoners arrived, supplied them with bread and

water as they halted in front of her house, which they were compelled to

do for hours, waiting the routine of being mustered into the prison.

They were not allowed to leave their ranks, and she would turn an

old-fashioned windlass herself for hours, raising water from her well;

for the prisoners were often twenty-four to forty-eight hours on the

railroad without rations or water.

Generally the officer in command would grant her request, but once a

sergeant told her, in reply, if she gave any of them a drop of water or

a piece of bread, or dared to come outside her gate for that purpose, he

would pin her to the earth with his bayonet. She defied him, and taking

her pail of water in one hand, and a basket of bread in the other, she

walked directly past him on her errand of mercy; he followed her,

placing his bayonet between her shoulders, just so that she could feel

the cold steel. She turned and coolly asked him why he did not pin her

to the earth, as he had threatened to do, but got no reply. Then some

of the rebels said, "Sergeant, you can't make anything on that woman,

you had better let her alone," and she performed her work unmolested.

Not content with these labors, she visited the burial-place where the

deceased Union prisoners of that loathsome prison-pen at Salisbury were

buried, and transcribed with a loving fidelity every inscription which

could be found there, to let the sorrowing friends of those martyrs to

their country know where their beloved ones are laid. The number of

these marked graves is small, only thirty-one in all, for the greater

part of the four or five thousand dead starved and tortured there till

they relinquished their feeble hold on life, were buried in trenches

four or five deep, and no record of their place of burial was permitted.

Mrs. Johnston also copied from the rebel registers at Salisbury after

the place was captured the statistics of the Union prisoners, admitted,

died, and remaining on hand in each month from October, 1864, to April,

1865. The aggregates in these six months were four thousand and

fifty-four admitted, of whom two thousand three hundred and ninety-seven

died, and one thousand six hundred and fifty-seven remained.

Mrs. Johnston came North in the summer of 1865, to visit her daughter,

who had been placed at a school in Connecticut by the kindness of some

of the officers she had befriended in prison; transportation having been

given her by Generals Schofield and Carter, who testified to the

services she had rendered our prisoners, and that she was entitled to

the gratitude of the Government and all loyal citizens.

[Illustration: MISS EMILY E. PARSONS.

Eng^d. by John Sartain.]

EMILY E. PARSONS.

Among the honorable and heroic women of New England whose hearts were

immediately enlisted in the cause of their country, in its recent

struggle against the rebellion of the slave States, and who prepared

themselves to do useful service in the hospitals as nurses, was Miss

Emily E. Parsons, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a daughter of Professor

Theophilus Parsons, of the Cambridge Law School, and granddaughter of

the late Chief Justice Parsons, of Massachusetts.

Miss Parsons was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, was educated in Boston,

and resided at Cambridge at the beginning of the war. She at once

foresaw that there would be need of the same heroic work on the part of

the women of the country as that performed by Florence Nightingale and

her army of women nurses in the Crimea, and with her father's approval

she consulted with Dr. Wyman, of Cambridge, how she could acquire the

necessary instruction and training to perform the duties of a skilful

nurse in the hospitals. Through his influence with Dr. Shaw, the

superintendent of the Massachusetts General Hospital, she was received

into that institution as a pupil in the work of caring for the sick, in

the dressing of wounds, in the preparation of diet for invalids, and in

all that pertains to a well regulated hospital. She was thoroughly and

carefully instructed by the surgeons of the hospital, all of whom took

great interest in fitting her for the important duties she proposed to

undertake, and gave her every opportunity to practice, with her own

hands, the labors of a good hospital nurse. Dr. Warren and Dr.

Townshend, two distinguished surgeons, took special pains to give her

all necessary information and the most thorough instruction. At the end

of one year and a half of combined teaching and practice, she was

recommended by Dr. Townshend to Fort Schuyler Hospital, on Long Island

Sound, where she went in October, 1862, and for two months performed the

duties of hospital nurse, in the most faithful and satisfactory manner,

when she left by her father's wishes, on account of the too great

exposure to the sea, and went to New York.

While in New York Miss Parsons wrote to Miss Dix, the agent of the

Government for the employment of women nurses, offering her services

wherever they might be needed, and received an answer full of

encouragement and sympathy with her wishes. At the same time she also

made the acquaintance of Mrs. John C. Fremont, who wrote to the Western

Sanitary Commission at St. Louis, of her qualifications and desire of

usefulness in the hospital service, and she was immediately telegraphed

to come on at once to St. Louis.

At this time, January, 1863, every available building in St. Louis was

converted into a hospital, and the sick and wounded were brought from

Vicksburg, and Arkansas Post, and Helena up the river to be cared for at

St. Louis and other military posts. At Memphis and Mound City, (near

Cairo) at Quincy, Illinois, and the cities on the Ohio River, the

hospitals were in equally crowded condition. Miss Parsons went

immediately to St. Louis and was assigned by Mr. James E. Yeatman, (the

President of the Western Sanitary Commission, and agent for Miss Dix),

to the Lawson Hospital. In a few weeks, however, she was needed for a

still more important service, and was placed as head nurse on the

hospital steamer "City of Alton," Surgeon Turner in charge. A large

supply of sanitary stores were entrusted to her care by the Western

Sanitary Commission, and the steamer proceeded to Vicksburg, where she

was loaded with about four hundred invalid soldiers, many of them sick

past recovery, and returned as far as Memphis. On this trip the strength

and endurance of Miss Parsons were tried to the utmost, and the

ministrations of herself and her associates to the poor, helpless and

suffering men, several of whom died on the passage up the river, were

constant and unremitting. At Memphis, after transferring the sick to the

hospitals, an order was received from General Grant to load the boat

with troops and return immediately to Vicksburg, an order prompted by

some military exigency, and Miss Parsons and the other female nurses

were obliged to return to St. Louis.

For a few weeks after her return she suffered from an attack of

malarious fever, and on her recovery was assigned to duty as

superintendent of female nurses at the Benton Barracks Hospital, the

largest of all the hospitals in St. Louis, built out of the amphitheatre

and other buildings in the fair grounds of the St. Louis Agricultural

Society, and placed in charge of Surgeon Ira Russell, an excellent

physician from Natick, Mass. In this large hospital there were often two

thousand patients, and besides the male nurses detailed from the army,

the corps of female nurses consisted of one to each of the fifteen or

twenty wards, whose duty it was to attend to the special diet of the

feebler patients, to see that the wards were kept in order, the beds

properly made, the dressing of wounds properly done, to minister to the

wants of the patients, and to give them words of good cheer, both by

reading and conversation--softening the rougher treatment and manners of

the male nurses, by their presence, and performing the more delicate

offices of kindness that are natural to woman.

In this important and useful service these women nurses, many of them

having but little experience, needed one of their own number of superior

knowledge, judgment and experience, to supervise their work, counsel and

advise with them, instruct them in their duties, secure obedience to

every necessary regulation, and good order in the general administration

of this important branch of hospital service. For this position Miss

Parsons was most admirably fitted, and discharged its duties with great

fidelity and success for many months, as long as Dr. Russell continued

in charge of the hospital. The whole work of female nursing was reduced

to a perfect system, and the nurses under Miss Parsons' influence became

a sisterhood of noble women, performing a great and loving service to

the maimed and suffering defenders of their country. In the organization

of this system and the framing of wise rules for carrying it into effect

Dr. Russell and Mr. Yeatman lent their counsel and assistance, and Dr.

Russell, as the chief surgeon, entertained those enlightened and liberal

views which gave the system a full chance to accomplish the best

results. Under his administration, and Miss Parsons' superintendence of

the nursing, the Benton Barracks Hospital became famous for its

excellence, and for the rapid recovery of the patients.

It was not often that the army surgeons could be induced to give so fair

a trial to female nursing in the hospitals. Too often they allowed their

prejudices to interfere, and used their authority to thwart instead of

aid the best plans for making the services of women all that was needed

in the hospitals. But in the case of Dr. Russell, enlightened judgment

and humane sympathies combined to make him friendly to the highest

exertions of woman, in this holy service of humanity. And the result

entirely justified the most sanguine expectations.

Having served six months in this capacity, Miss Parsons went to her home

at Cambridge, on a furlough from the Sanitary Commission, to recruit her

health. After a short period of rest she returned to St. Louis and

resumed her position at Benton Barracks, in which she continued till

August, 1864, when in consequence of illness, caused by malaria, she

returned to her home in Cambridge a second time. On her recovery she

concluded to enter upon the same work in the eastern department, but the

return of peace, and the disbanding of a large portion of the army

rendered her services in the hospitals no longer necessary.

From this time she devoted herself at home to working for the freedmen

and refugees, collecting clothing and garden seeds for them, many boxes

of which she shipped to the Western Sanitary Commission, at St. Louis,

to be distributed in the Mississippi Valley, where they were greatly

needed, and were received as a blessing from the Lord by the poor

refugees and freedmen, who in many instances were without the means to

help themselves, or to buy seed for the next year's planting.

In the spring of 1865, she took a great interest in the Sanitary Fair

held at Chicago, collected many valuable gifts for it, and was sent for

by the Committee of Arrangements to go out as one of the managers of the

department furnished by the New Jerusalem Church--the different churches

having separate departments in the Fair. This duty she fulfilled, with

great pleasure and success, and the general results of the Fair were all

that could be desired.

Returning home from the Chicago Fair, and the war being ended, Miss

Parsons conceived a plan of establishing in her own city of Cambridge, a

Charity Hospital for poor women and children. For this most praiseworthy

object she has already collected a portion of the necessary funds, which

she has placed in the hand of a gentleman who consents to act as

Treasurer, and is entirely confident of the ultimate success of her

enterprise. There is no doubt but that she possesses the character, good

judgment, Christian motive and perseverance to carry it through, and she

has the encouragement, sympathies and prayers of many friends to sustain

her in the noble endeavor.

In concluding this sketch of the labors of Miss Parsons in the care and

nursing of our sick and wounded soldiers, and in the Sanitary and other

benevolent enterprises called forth by the war, it is but just to say

that in every position she occupied she performed her part with judgment

and fidelity, and always brought to her work a spirit animated by the

highest motives, and strengthened by communion with the Infinite Spirit,

from whom all love and wisdom come to aid and bless the children of

men. Everywhere she went among the sick and suffering she brought the

sunshine of a cheerful and loving heart, beaming from a countenance

expressive of kindness, and good will and sympathy to all. Her presence

in the hospital was always a blessing, and cheered and comforted many a

despondent heart, and compensated in some degree, for the absence of the

loved ones at home. Her gentle ministrations so faithful and cheering,

might well have received the reverent worship bestowed on the shadow of

Florence Nightingale, so admirably described by Longfellow in his Saint

Filomena:

"And slow, as in a dream of bliss

The speechless sufferer turned to kiss

Her shadow as it falls

Upon the darkening walls."

MRS. ALMIRA FALES.

Mrs. Fales, it is believed, was the first woman in America who performed

any work directly tending to the aid and comfort of the soldiers of the

nation in the late war. In truth, her labors commenced before any overt

acts of hostility had taken place, even so long before as December,

1860. Hostility enough there undoubtedly was in feeling, but the fires

of secession as yet only smouldered, not bursting into the lurid flames

of war until the following spring.

Yet Mrs. Fales, from her home in Washington, was a keen observer of the

"signs of the times," and read aright the portents of rebellion. In her

position, unobserved herself, she saw and heard much, which probably

would have remained unseen and unheard by loyal eyes and ears, had the

haughty conspirators against the nation's life dreamed of any danger

arising from the knowledge of their projects, obtained by this humble

woman.

So keen was the prescience founded on these things that, as has been

said, she, as early as December, 1860, scarcely a month after the

election of Abraham Lincoln, gave a pretext for secession which its

leaders were eager to avail themselves of, "began to prepare lint and

hospital stores for the soldiers of the Union, not one of whom had then

been called to take up arms."

Of course, she was derided for this act. Inured to peace, seemingly more

eager for the opening of new territory, the spread of commerce, the gain

of wealth and power than even for the highest national honor, the North

would not believe in the possibility of war until the boom of the guns

of Sumter, reverberating from the waves of the broad Atlantic, and

waking the echoes all along its shores, burst upon their ears to tell in

awful tones that it had indeed commenced.

But there was one--a woman in humble life, yet of wonderful benevolence,

of indomitable energy, unflagging perseverance, and unwavering purpose,

who foresaw its inevitable coming and was prepared for it.

Almira Fales was no longer young. She had spent a life in doing good,

and was ready to commence another. Her husband had employment under the

government in some department of the civil service, her sons entered the

army, and she, too,--a soldier, in one sense, as truly as they--since

she helped and cheered on the fight.

From that December day that commenced the work, until long after the war

closed, she gave herself to it, heart and soul--mind and body. No one,

perhaps, can tell her story of work and hardship in detail, not even

herself, for she acts rather than talks or writes. "Such women, always

doing, never think of pausing to tell their own stories, which, indeed,

can never be told; yet the hint of them can be given, to stir in the

hearts of other women a purer emulation, and to prove to them that the

surest way to happiness is to serve others and forget yourself."

In detail we have only this brief record of what she has done, yet what

volumes it contains, what a history of labor and of self-sacrifice!

"After a life spent in benevolence, it was in December, 1860, that

Almira Fales began to prepare lint and hospital stores for the soldiers

of the Union, not one of whom had then been called to take up arms.

People laughed, of course; thought it a 'freak;' said that none of these

things would ever be needed. Just as the venerable Dr. Mott said, at the

women's meeting in Cooper Institute, after Sumter had been fired: 'Go

on, ladies! Get your lint ready, if it will do your dear hearts any

good, though I don't believe myself that it will ever be needed.' Since

that December Mrs. Fales has emptied over seven thousand boxes of

hospital stores, and distributed with her own hands over one hundred and

fifty thousand dollars worth of comforts to sick and wounded soldiers.

Besides, she supplied personally between sixty and seventy forts with

reading matter. She was months at sea--the only woman on hospital ships

nursing the wounded and dying men. She was at Corinth, and at Pittsburg

Landing, serving our men in storm and darkness. She was at Fair Oaks.

She was under fire through the seven days' fight on the Peninsula, with

almost breaking heart ministering on those bloody fields to 'the saddest

creatures that she ever saw.'

"Through all those years, _every day_, she gave her life, her strength,

her nursing, her mother-love to our soldiers. For her to be a soldier's

nurse meant something very different from wearing a white apron, a white

cap, sitting by a moaning soldier's bed, looking pretty. It meant days

and nights of untiring toil; it meant the lowliest office, the most

menial service; it meant the renouncing of all personal comfort, the

sharing of her last possession with the soldier of her country; it meant

patience, and watching, and unalterable love. A mother, every boy who

fought for his country was _her_ boy; and if she had nursed him in

infancy, she could not have cared for him with a tenderer care. Journey

after journey this woman has performed to every part of the land,

carrying with her some wounded, convalescing soldier, bearing him to

some strange cottage that she never saw before, to the pale, weeping

woman within, saying to her with smiling face, 'I have brought back

_your_ boy. Wipe your eyes, and take care of him.' Then, with a

fantastic motion, tripping away as if she were not tired at all, and had

done nothing more than run across the street. Thousands of heroes on

earth and in heaven gratefully remember this woman's loving care to them

in the extremity of anguish. The war ended, her work does not cease.

Every day you may find her, with her heavily-laden basket, in hovels of

white and black, which dainty and delicate ladies would not dare to

enter. No wounds are so loathsome, no disease so contagious, no human

being so abject, that she shrinks from contact; if she can minister to

their necessity."

During the Peninsular campaign Mrs. Fales was engaged on board the

Hospital Transports, during most of the trying season of 1862. She was

at Harrison's Landing in care of the wounded and wearied men worn down

by the incessant battles and hard marches which attended the "change of

base" from the Chickahominy to the James. She spent a considerable time

in the hospitals at Fortress Monroe; and was active in her ministrations

upon the fields in the battles of Centreville, Chantilly, and the second

battle of Bull Run, indeed most of those of Pope's campaign in Virginia

in the autumn of 1862.

At the battle of Chancellorsville, or rather at the assault upon Marye's

Heights, in that fierce assault of Sedgwick's gallant Sixth Corps on the

works which had on the preceding December defied the repeated charges of

Burnside's best troops, Mrs. Fales lost a son. About one-third of the

attacking force were killed or badly wounded in the assault, and among

the rest the son of this devoted mother, who at that very hour might

have been ministering to the wounded and dying son of some other mother.

This loss was to her but a stimulus to further efforts and sacrifices.

She mourned as deeply as any mother, but not as selfishly, as some might

have done. In this, as in all her ways of life, she but carried out its

ruling principle which was self-devotion, and deeds not words.

Mrs. Fales may not, perhaps, be held up as an example of harmonious

development, but she has surely shown herself great in self-forgetfulness

and heroic devotion to the cause of her country. In person she is tall,

plain in dress, and with few of the fashionable and stereotyped graces

of manner. No longer young, her face still bears ample traces of former

beauty, and her large blue eyes still beam with the clear brightness of

youth. But her hands tell the story of hardship and sacrifice.

"Poor hands! darkened and hardened by work, they never shirked any task,

never turned from any drudgery, that could lighten the load of another.

Dear hands! how many blood-stained faces they have washed, how many

wounds they have bound up, how many eyes they have closed in dying, how

many bodies they have sadly yielded to the darkness of death!"

She is full of a quaint humor, and in all her visits to hospitals her

aim seemed to be to awake smiles, and arouse the cheerfulness of the

patients; and she was generally successful in this, being everywhere a

great favorite. One more quotation from the written testimony of a lady

who knew her well and we have done.

"An electric temperament, a nervous organization, with a brain crowded

with a variety of memories and incidents that could only come to one in

a million--all combine to give her a pleasant abruptness of motion and

of speech, which I have heard some very fine ladies term insanity. 'Now

don't you think she is crazy, to spend all her time in such ways?' said

one. When we remember how rare a thing utter unselfishness and

self-forgetfulness is, we must conclude that she is crazy. If the

listless and idle lives which we live ourselves are perfectly sane, then

Almira Fales must be the maddest of mortals. But would it not be better

for the world, and for us all, if we were each of us a little crazier in

the same direction?"